Stossel: Enough Crony Capitalism!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- Established businesses, like Facebook, use government to limit competition.
---------
Subscribe to our TH-cam channel: / reasontv
Like us on Facebook: / reason.magaz. .
Follow us on Twitter: / reason
Subscribe to our podcast at iTunes: goo.gl/az3a7a
Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
---------
Once, Microsoft had zero lobbyists. The company focused on innovating.
"Microsoft in the early 1990s was the largest company in the world. Incredibly successful ... They had no presence in Washington, D.C. Not a single lawyer," Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute tells John Stossel.
But things changed.
Brook explains how Microsoft's CEO was "literally brought in front of Congress ... Orrin Hatch from Utah ... said, 'You guys need to get involved here in Washington, D.C. You need to build a building here. You need to hire lawyers here.'"
Microsoft, courageously, didn't. Instead, Brook recounts, "Microsoft walked out of the meeting and said, 'You know what? You leave us alone, we will leave you alone ... We're busy. We're running the biggest company in the world. There's a lot to do.'"
But soon after that, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that the Justice Department was charging Microsoft with "engaging in anti-competitive and exclusionary practices designed to maintain its monopoly."
Brook says the government was essentially saying, "we're here to prosecute yo u because you're offering the American public ... a product for free. This is Internet Explorer, at a time when we were buying Netscape and paying money for it-they offered it for free, and that was deemed bad business practice."
"For 10 years they had to fight that lawsuit," he adds. "They lost, they got regulated, they got controlled. Guess how much Microsoft spends today in Washington, D.C.? … Tens of millions of dollars."
Stossel calls that "sad."
Now, even worse, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg asks government for more regulation. He wants Congress to "require companies to build systems for keeping harmful content to a bare minimum".
Wouldn't that violate the First Amendment?
Stossel says it also, conveniently, would protect Facebook from competitors who don't restrict content. It also makes it harder for them to innovate in ways that might challenge Facebook.
Stossel and Brook's solution? Smaller government: separation of economy and state.
The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.
(At 2:09). I remember that. Microsoft brought in front of congress, for what amounted to: "Nice company you got here. Be a shame if somethin' happened to it."
It was before my time, but I'm amazed!
Microsoft : "Are you threatening me?"
US Govt : "Oh, no, no, no, yes!"
@@garyc6183 "No, but actually yes"
@@matrixman8582 See Monty Pythons Flying Circus season 1 episode 8
The govt had a legitimate case against Microsoft for having a monopoly and anti-competition, the same way companies like Facebook hold monopolies and use anti-competition measures now
Never stop John Stossel! Love these videos
That's the basic fact none of my liberal friends will acknowledge: corporate money is in politics because corporate profits depend on the whims of DC.
Yes, the Republicans loves taking swamp money from corporations lol
Sounds like we need to REGULATE money in politics. Hence we need more regulations not less. Right problem wrong solution!!
But who will we get to enforce these new regulations?
Why the government of course.
Genius shear genius.@@Thirdleg4sale
@@Thirdleg4sale "Money in politics" is inevitable as long as the government is allowed to do anything and everything is up for a vote. People and entities SHOULD be lobbying as long as there is a threat of policy fucking with them.
Corporations profit from dealing in the market . Obviously you’ve learned nothing from this video and also know nothing about markets either
frightening how much power the government is gaining year by year.
The more it exercises , the tireder and older it gets .
Frightening how it will expire one day .
@@rocinante8200
And exist at the Government's leasure .
You see that's the thing about regulations and big government. Once you bring it in, you can never get rid of it.
Cariss Stewart- Only because the people are allowing it to happen.
As long as you, the voter, show your approval by continuously returning these same politicians, from the same parties to the same positions of power, it will not stop!
Remember the adage, insanity is doing the same thing, the same way, again and again expecting a different result.
The main "leaders" (and they aren't lets be clear) in congress are all north of 80 years old. I'm sick of these senile overlords dictating policy that will plague me and my family long after they are gone. TERM LIMITS.
I'm tired of ageists like you!
@@wkdravenna I'm factually accurate so your petty emotional reaction is insignificant to me. Take a deep breath and realize I am correct and carry on your day with dignity and civility.
@@wkdravenna OH like you have never bitched and moaned about a "Millennial" just simmer down there Agnus. I have something to say about every age group no one is perfect...except ME!
The old guys have absolutely no clue how the rest of us actually live. They need term limits like a bank needs security, end of story. I say 4 years max.
@@wkdravenna Noone should be legislating topics on topics they are clueless about. Sadly, most old men in Congress have very low under understanding of modern tech.
Most politicians belong in prison
You know nothing John Doe!.. lol this is not the time of the year for you to be online
In all seriousness though... I can't take that serious after the Kavanaugh case.
it's still a democracy; the voters belong in prison !!
@@MichielVanKets actually we're a Democratic republic. Democracy is one person one vote. Democratic republic is we vote for representatives and they vote for us, at least that's how its supposed to work, if one doesn't include the slow crawl of corruption. Hence term limits, and since we have non for our reps then it's more likely over time that they will become corrupted.
@@neanderthal1989 you poor brainwashed sheep ...
@@MichielVanKets says the sheep that uses the words "Democratic process" and "voted in democraticlly" but doesn't think it's part of the government system. Brilliant and because I say Democratic you somehow thing that I would use the constitution as toilet paper. A sheepoeple would think that those two thinks are mutually exclusive.
Many people would be surprised, I think to hear the founding fathers' take on this, I forget whom, though I think it was Thomas Paine, who said Govt is at best a necessary evil.
If govt is at best a necessary evil then those who would make it larger are in essence growing the amount of evil in the world.
I won't go so far as to pretend that we could ever have a world without govt, but a good deal less meddling by the govt in the affairs of the people would probably be better at this point of time!
I love John Stossel videos and agree with his perspective on many things. I agree with the overall premise of this video, but Mr. Brooks leaves out some important aspects of the issue. Microsoft was offering Internet Explorer for free because they couldn't see IE against the competitor's product from Netscape. They weren't even gaining market share when they were offering IE for FREE. They had to force computer manufacturers to include IE and EXCLUDE Netscape if the computer manufacturer wanted to install the Windows operating system. That is anti-competition and the actions of a monopoly.
well said
Legalize freedom; abolish the State.
Of Isreal that is. 🔯 Illuminati.
I see you are a fellow man of culture. Rothbardians unite!
j. Love your avatar bro. Few will understand that, but that's the mind behind Sowell, Hayek and Friedman!
Without the state, there is no one to enforce laws that are actually needed.
@@steelfire819 I'll take that risk.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
- Shakespeare
(Or some other literary giant. LOL)
"There is nothing new under the sun".-the Bible
Or on a slightly more contemporary note:
"Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss"
-Pete Townshend
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Alphonse_Karr
eastbeast95 thank you!
General Shepherd.
Crony statism, not capitalism ferchristsakes!!
The Federal Farmer no, it’s capitalism. Capitalism has always relied on a state to enforce private property rights and capitalists have always used their economic power to influence policy in a way that benefits them economically.
@@JacatackLP And when the LP is elected?
The Federal Farmer what?
@@JacatackLP If the LP ever got into power, would they just ignore that newfound power?
The Federal Farmer oh “Libertarian Party”. Sorry not aquatinted with your particular vernacular. I think ultimately a Libertarian Government would fall into fascism remarkably quickly as the lack of social programs, cute to education, and failing of subsidized industries cause widespread discontent which would cause the capitalist class to use their influence to either stage a coup such as the “Business Plot” from the Great Depression or just the government having it’s hand forced into helping the industrial powers against the working class as people demanded reforms or started violating property laws to survive.
Is it just me that thinks the bigger government you have the more corruption of business and politics there are in s nation.
Yes you are the only one who has ever though of that. You are a genius.
@@MilwaukeeF40C LMAO
Is it just me that thinks the bigger businesses you have the more corruption of government and politics there are in a nation.
well, you and 3 other guys vs 300 million brainwashed losers ... good luck with that!
Microsoft: offered IE for free.
Then gets sued because its a superior product??
*ERRR* Wrong, that's not the full story.
What isn't mentioned in the video was that:
-Windows was the *only* commercially viable OS for PC manufacturers.
-PC manufacturers were not allowed to include any other browsers except IE.
-IE came included with Windows
-Intel, who depended on windows for sales, would lose access to windows if they continued the development of their own OS.
-Apple would lose Microsoft Office, if they didn't promote/implement IE.
-It was a hassle to switch browsers back then, due to the extremely slow internet speeds.
From the New York Times, "The court found that Microsoft had engaged in anticompetitive behavior by imposing license restrictions on computer makers that forced them to install the company's Internet Explorer browser and exclude rival Netscape's Navigator browser."
+
"And the court concluded that Microsoft had violated Section 2 by threatening Apple Computer that it would cancel work on a new suite of Office applications for Apple's own operating system unless Apple made greater use of the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.
Finally, the court said that Microsoft had violated Section 2 by threatening Intel by refusing to deliver Intel technologies bundled with the Windows operating system. At the time, Intel was developing computer technology based on the Java operating system, which was viewed as a potential competitor to Microsoft Windows. But Intel capitulated under pressure from Microsoft."
In other words, Vendors were not allowed to include any other browsers except IE, Apple would have to promote/implement IE on their computers if they wanted MS Office, & Microsoft refused to include windows on Intel computers, unless they dropped their own OS in development (If Intel did not stop development of their own OS, they would fail as a company since windows was again, their only commercially viable OS for PC manufacturers. They had no one else to turn to.) To sum up Microsoft, they were anti-competitive by abusing their market position to stifle or suppress their competitors. The literal definition of anti-competitive.
So, does the Microsoft case sound "unfair" now?
NYTimes: www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/technology/us-appeals-court-overturns-microsoft-breakup-ruling.html
Woh woh woh are you suggesting someone on the internet excluded information in order to mislead and misrepresent? Well now I don't know who to trust 🤣
In a nutshell, M$ was not the victim of crony capitalism. It was indeed one of the instigators of it. Even today, M$ SJWs infiltrated companies like Canonical, RedHat and Debian, and those companies are now undermining free software.
There were times when there was no only Safari on Mac and no MS Office for Mac.... and miraculously, it got solved by the market without the government intervening. There is only iOs for the iPhone today, does it create any problems for the customers? Or would it create any problems for the customers if Intel didn't ditch their OS and went bankrupt? What you are saying, with this lawsuit government protected Intel and Apple, not the customer, which is precisely what crony capitalism is - the government defending its cronies.
Keep licking the government's boots
Sounds like the mafia.
Worse, one can probably make friends in the old Mafia !
These videos get hundreds of thousands of views eventually. If any of you are programmers, please keep working on the open source stuff, you're doing more good than you know just by offering an alternative and taking influence(money) away from manipulative corporations who push for laws that restrict small businesses.
For example, does anyone know why is linux still so terrible? ubuntu needs some workaround to use normal windows programs and then has bad performance because it cant use all the system resources.
You want people to work for free? What is this socialism?
henry tep If thats the way you feel, make sure to never use any open source software so you wont be a hypocrite. I don’t want people to work for free, i want to end monopolies. open source software allows a lot more people to work on a project than just one company, so it has a better chance of competing with corporations. That doesn’t mean programmers shouldn’t still have jobs and make money, just that it would be nice to see all of them come together to build an operating system, browser, and other programs that can compete with apple and microsoft.
henry tep just look at what george hotz is doing for inspiration. Creating a better self driving AI than major car companies, releasing it as open source so that it can be improved by other and cant be recalled , and making a profit too.
3 years late but at the current stage linux is pretty good and can run almost all programs I use on linux even if not native through sandboxes etc. There are very few things I cannot do on linjux that can only be done on windows for example these days.
Government solves everything. Just ask them how successful they are.
And never mind that man behind the curtain!
There is no such thing as crony capitalism...only cronyism. Capitalism and cronyism are the antithesis of one another.
I think of the phrase "crony capitalism" as being like "2am philosopher". It is tongue in cheek.
@Jarryd M I like "voluntarism" as a term for individual liberty and free markets. "Voluntaryism" sounds weird.
crony statism
DONT TRUST THIS MAN!!! *Points to Zuckerburg*
More Yaron Brook please!
'Crony Capitalism' is called FASCISM. Business insiders draw up new government rules to favorably regulate their business at the expense of all competition in exchange for $$$$ campaign donations.
No, it`s oligarchy. Fascism is autoritarian system(one person).
wish yaron was as popular as Jordan peterson
Yaron Brook speaks the objective truth. And the collectivists on the left and right are threatened by him.
Case in point the small-minded caveman racist who replied before me here.
Jordan Peterson is just a Christian preacher nothing more. There is nothing intellectual there.
@@BuFFoTheArtClown This is a pretty caveman level response.
Government can never be fully removed from economics because government is a business. And their product is violence, over which they have a monopoly.
Not to mention the fact that the statement that you own something is in fact a threat of violence. You are saying that "I take this thing and shall enforce that it shall only be used according to my will to the exclusion of others on threat of violence outsourced to the state according to the rules we subject the state to according to our sense of justice and fairness".
"Look at me. I am the captain now" - Captain Phillips
They claim monopoly over violence. The fact that there are competing organizations (like the neighborhood gangbanbers....) gives lie to their claim of exclusivity. It is also why the framers of our constitution in the USA enumerated the rights that the govt wasn't to interfere with, one of which was the right of the people to keep and bear arms... IOW the people had a right to bring violence where they needed to bring it, 'cause in the words of one wag, A police man is too heavy to carry in my pocket!
Government is the opposite of a business. They only make money by borrowing and stealing, through the use of force. A business makes money by turning a profit, through voluntary trade.
@@willhoren9200 Business is the trade of goods and services. Violence is a service, just ask any security agency. And the threat thereof is in the same industry as marketing. We are all just animals and are always just trying to scratch one more day's resources from the world so we can continue breathing. We are never truly free from the violent forces of our animal need to consume to exist that always act as a gun pointed at our head, making the myth that our trade is free and voluntary a myth. Because if you don't trade your family's jewels for food, you won't be alive to appreciate them anyway. And no matter how many degrees of separation you put between that situation and your transaction at McDonald's, that truth remains the same.
I guess the famous sentence "Too Big To Fail" is incomplete and is meant to be "To Big to Fail To Be Noticed".
When you are a successful business, as long as you remain small, then nobody notices you and thus, nobody will bother you.
But as soon as you get big, no-single-value-producing people will start to put their nose into your business, wanting part of the cake without much effort!
At the beginning, we can clearly see that Zuckerberg is not master of the situation in front of that old man from the Congress ; in France, we would say that he is holding Zuckerberg by the balls!
But guess what, it is in every country like this. Or give me the name of only one country, where this is not the case!
Thanks, John.
Actually
Separate
Economics
From
State ~
Impossible. The state is just one more corporate entity. Granted they have insisted that they, and only they have the right to carry guns and issue money... Which makes you think... The worst of them, the ones who want the govt to do everything.... Want to increase the power of the corporation of which they intend to be the masters!
@@annemouse6788 thanks Anne.
I believe in the separation of of church and state. The same belief applies to the separation of capitalism and state.
Term limits, term limits, term limits, term limits fixes everything.
As pappy would always say; ''don't complain unless you can offer up a solution for your complaint".
To solve a big problem you have to look at the big picture.
Nowhere on the voting ballot shall be the name of the current occupant of the seat that is being voted on.
If the current seat holder can get enough write-in votes to win, then they can serve another term.
Dominic Gannon Term limits won’t fix a damn thing.
Embedding the browser into the operating system worked out so well for Microsoft...they should have lobbied instead of coded.
IE was abuse of market position. That particular browser was making tech progress go backwards. It was provided free to take make a hostile take over of the browser market and WWW in general. Funny enough, IE was/is the most popular browser in many government offices.
@@infirmux The MS defense was to make the browser a part of the file system so that they couldn't be forced to provide equal footing for 3rd party browsers. This bad technical decision created years of instability.
@@infirmux Provide something for low cost (or free) = abuse of market position
Provide something at too high a cost = Price gouging
Provide something at the same price as everyone else = price fixing
Government can find an excuse to regulate anything - then use their influence to create and prop up bad actors. They need to get their sticky fingers out of the market.
@@Nick-rd5xs oversimplification
infirmux give me a fucking break. Internet explorer being free was one of the best things to ever happen to the browser space. Or would you still prefer to pay $50 for Netscape navigator? Releasing IE for free directly led Netscape to do the same by founding the Mozilla foundation which is responsible for one of the best free browsers available to this day: Firefox.
I know where to start we need to stop giving tax money to these companies
That's where you start? What about not using their products to begin with?
@@henrytep8884 We are using one of the products you mention right now but i see your point. Its just hard when they have a monopoly like they do.
Reality: We need regulation for less big tech regulation.
Big tech: You're right! We do need more regulation! More public regulation!
Reality: *facepalms*
aka corporatism aka fascism
Aka Central Banking , aka Mercantilism
Socialism is not unlike these either.
@@MilwaukeeF40C
Socialism Doesn't exist without a Central Bank . A monopoly on Currency. See also , captured market.
I love this channel! I can't believe I agree with 99.9% of everything Stossel and Reason publish.
Finally Bitcoin and distributed ledger technology allow us to work towards "separating economics from state".
Bitcoin is already set up ! It is a vicious Trap ! Best to leave it alone ! When everyone feels safe, it was leaked already what is planned !
Eh Sorry. Bitcoin or Money Controlled by Government aint good. None of them. Standard Gold is the real way. Im not certain. But almost. In The ancient Times it always worked. And it would work as of now.
Great.
Here in canada ya got to pay protection money, just to get a job. Apparently, in Congress... they got some racket. Old news.
I used to be optimist but each we move one step ahead then two back.
I love Mr. Stossel's shows. I always come away with more knowledge.
Peter Schiff has a movie about this, I am the 1%. It's like 2 hours of him talking about this problem with people on the street outside Wall Street. You can fix capitalism but until the workers are paid with something other than a fiat currency. Wealth in this country will continue to go down.
Microsoft should have hired assassins not lawyers.
There is a point to your comment...
How are the big tech companies going to be regulated? By the market. If millions stopped using their "free" services and found other services, tech's influence would be diminished. Their arrogance is supported by the truckloads of money they earn from all of us. We're using TH-cam now and, by default, supporting them.
My advice - install an adblocker - stop supporting TH-cam's de-monetizing accounts they don't like.
If enough users took actions like this, they will start hearing the message.
I work in IT and I don’t install chrome on any of our PCs and default browsers are DuckDuckGo; and I know a lot of my colleagues in the field and in other businesses do the same.
So just bc you don’t see it happening doesn’t mean it isn’t
@@gbalfour9618 yeah no. You do not have the population nor network effect to take down the established tech companies. Their power grow exponentially while those alternatives are as popular as ubuntu, which is saying not popular at all.
@henry tep
Well here’s a news flash regulations aren’t going to take them down either. In fact it will only bolster them and protect them from competion.
John said this in the video l, did you not watch it? Or do you really think the government is out to help you?
Truth!
I enjoy hearing this even though it's kind of preaching to the quire this is super informational and many people have never thought about this. They have this illusion that the state is above the immoral acts of a mafia.
How do you "separate economics from state"?
All they had to do was to start charging for IE and the problem would have gone away. I remember being in college at the time and being crushed because Netscape was a far better product but we were losing it because they couldn't compete and I was all for the government stepping to make the fight fair. But after seeing this, I now know that it is always better to have less government involvement.
Really, top to bottom, it was a shakedown by the kongresskritter from Utah... Because he forgot that he was supposed to defend the people from the power of the govt....
If i may disagree...
Yes Netscape was a better product, but better for who and at what cost? The free market did not agree that netscape was better than Internet Explorer AT ANY PRICE. That is the crucial difference.
There were not enough techies back then who valued it more than IE the price Microsoft were charging (yes $0).
But hey, we still have free Firefox which I believe evolved from Netscape's IP.
If any of the big tech firms started today, they would find their hands tied...not the freedom they had to begin with....thanks to their own meddling.
Jord A. And that’s precisely why many large businesses support regulation - it helps wipe out any up-and-coming competitors. It’s like climbing up a ladder and then burning it once you’ve made it up.
Never had this perspective of the government forcing companies into Cronyism.
This really opens my eye into how corrupt our government is. We need to elect politicians that want change, that will put a stop to Cronyism
So true
Great work from Mr. Stossel, as usual. But I prefer the term "Government Cronyism", because the problem isn't capitalism.
It's not perfect (Capitalism aka Free Market) but nothing is, and nothing else actually can create long term prosperity or even stability. if you disagree you need to go back and learn history.
Zuckerburg looks like a scared kid.
Love these! You should buy ad space for these videos!
This what Ayn Rand warned us about,
Awesome video. Every word of it is true.
3 of the 4 most hated professions. The 4th being insurance.
Regulations as in allow all freedom of speech for example if Facebook allowed freedom of speech then all advertisers would pull out but if the government forces freedom of speech on social media then advertisers wouldn't pull out because all platforms have freedoms of speech
We have seperation of church and state, now we need seperation of business and state
The state and the capital sits in the same boat
The only thing our forefathers got wrong was not giving term limits to representatives and not having anyone oversee them.
The Netscape story was told inverted. Microsoft wanted to make sure that only IE could run on Windows, and no other browser. Politicians always lie, no matter what is the side of their team. They are, essentially, like lawyers.
They did the same thing with Uber and Lyft forgot all the regulations that cabs had to have and let them run a complete sham of a company
Wow. I did not know this.
"Separation of economic powers and government" would be the best idea for a new amendment. :)
The Confederate constitution had something to the effect of government not being allowed to promote or foster any particular kind of industry. They ignored the hell out of it though.
How corrupt do you have to be to *force* companies into bribing you as though you're living a lifestyle way above what your normal wage can afford and have to compensate?
Bad Habits.Sins. Domination. I can't Hate Them..? SATIRE. Constitutionally. .Protected. .
Gee whiz. They are a monopoly but they pay the taxes. Government should intervene to the minimum, unless sate security is involved.
Monopolies can only exist through government support limiting competition in their favor
Thank u keep it up
Internet explorer is still begging to be your preferred browser to this day...
Gates, Zuckerberg, etc not one Hank Reardon among them.
It gives them an advantage and it gives them an out.
Why they flying F do they want more regulations. Seriously these corporate people/politicians are control freaks
The problem with social media is that they are regulating on their own -- what they need to do is follow the first amendment and allow all speech that doesn't fall into one of the categories that the Supreme Court has already clearly determined is NOT covered by the first amendment (e.g. threats of violence, terrorism, "yelling fire in a crowded theater", defamation of character, etc...). If they followed the first amendment and possibly set up an area for those under 18 which is a bit more restrictive I don't think there would be any issues (of course someone is always offended, there is no way around that, but at least the rules would be clear).
If the government seeks to regulate this business then would they not in turn develop lobbying or special interest groups to fund politicians campaigns and buy seats on committees that they feel puts them in an position of influence?
JOHN STOSSEL ROCKS!
Feels relevant in these antitrust hearings
The guy who sells your information on a daily basis also bought the tree houses adjacent to his own so that he could enjoy some of that "privacy". He's the last person i want to see making any sorts of regulations.On top of that, he's in a partisan position to make regulations that will benefit Facebook so why trust him?
Key quote by Zuckerberg that I expected this video to include, from Washington Post transcript:
ZUCKERBERG: Well, senator, I agree with the point that when you're thinking through regulation, across all industries, you need to be careful that it doesn't cement in the current companies that are - that are winning.
SULLIVAN: But would you try to do that? Isn't that the normal inclination of a company, to say, hey, I'm going to hire the best guys in town and I'm going to cement in an advantage. You wouldn't do that if we were regulating you.
ZUCKERBERG: Senator, that - that certainly wouldn't be our approach. But - but I think - I think part of the challenge with regulation in general is that when you add more rules that companies need to follow, that's something that a larger company like ours inherently just has the resources to go do, and that might just be harder for a smaller company getting started to be able to comply with.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/04/10/transcript-of-mark-zuckerbergs-senate-hearing/
not an actual free market as long as there are cronies
Overregulation will strangle an economy. Under-regulation will see that economy corrupted.
Facebook shouldn't be censoring a damn thing.
Some regulations are good, some are bad. Completely separating is a bad idea, allowing government to have this much power over the market is a bad idea. Extremes ruin the pie.
OMG, Microsoft Corporation is spending 10s of millions on dollars on lobbying, how can they stay in business? With only 110.4 billion in revenue, the lobbying is accounting for 0.01%... And the antitrust law case was not just that MS was "giving away a product that other companies are charging for", first, nothing is truly free, the cost is simply put else where, in MS's case, the the price of windows as well as the info MS got from IE. But the real issue was that MS intentionally made it hard for users to install Netscape. In the trail, MS claimed it was easy, showing a video of it being installed, the government then did the same thing in open court showing a VERY different and not at all easy result, which was what killed MS in that court fight.
Who gives a fuck what is easy to install on Windows? Nobody is entitled to any product being made any way.
That guys voice is something else
Stossel needs to run for president in 2020
I lean to smaller government but at same time who keeps corporations from monopolizing its business and playing fair. Free market is only free until it is monopolized. On smaller scale, who protects us from fraudulent and scam businesses that can uncut legitimate businesses. Look at history of Heinz ketchup and see how Hienz ran into shady copycats at time of no quality standards for food. Business is a competition just like sports. Like sports there needs to be rules that everyone plays fairly and someone to judge and enforce the rules.
John needs to do a piece on monopolies.
All politicians need term limits same as the president
marine4667 : Here's one, all politicians are to be executed following the conclusion of their terms.
If a big corporation is calling for regulation, you know something is wrong.
"The Government"= The New Mafia
People actually paid for Netscape?!? ROFLMAO!!!
The other way to look at this is that campaigns should be publicly funded by only U.S citizen individual donors within a district. Lobbying shouldn't even exist in the first place.
I'm with you....now though they are stopping Company like parlor ...its a joke...the shouldn't bye able to get together and do that its racketeering
It's not 'crony capitalism'. It's just Cronyism.
Congressional term limits will reduce cronyism. But congress will not impose term limits on themselves.
I have my doubts that cronyism is always initiated by government, and I'm an anti-regulation libertarian.
It's not always initiated by government. But it's only possible through government.
Free speech is important
Surprise! The Robber Baron is inviting the government to step in!
Big Tech will WRITE the regulations to protect THEIR asses and exclude competition from the market. This is the time-honored practice. Disgusting that people fall for it!
Netscape for free didn't mean strings weren't attached!
This what you get when you have politicians that have the option to turn their office in government into a career. The presidential office definitely causes some issue, being that they use executive orders to shove laws through. But the checks and balances are definitely broken. Roe v. wade being turned back to a state issue is a step in the right direction, by returning these matters to a state by state issue. The size of the federal government is insane. Do I think there is a place for regulation when it comes to economics. Yes but if a government agency such as the epa is going to make publicly enforced laws they need to be voted into office.
I'd love to see a book from stossel about what rights people should have in order to create a successful country
Yup and crooked as Hell , let the reaping begin
The government can't seem to leave we the people alone
@Shina no it is not. Why do you run around spamming this commie propaganda all over the place?
What about regulation on Facebook and Twitter censoring right-wing voices?